Reen, of Wilbraham, scored the biggest win in his driving career in October, 2011 when he won the NASCAR Whelen Modified Touring Series race at Connecticut’s Thompson International Speedway’s season-ending World Series Of Auto Racing.

Cabral, of Bridgewater, raced his way to his third NEMA (Northeastern Midget Association) Midget driving championship in 2011. It was the tenth consecutive year in which Cabral has been in the top five in NEMA driver standings.

Reen and Cabral are among over forty early entries set to compete for victory in the fourth running of “The Coffee Cup.”

The weekend race meet includes two days of qualifying races and feature events for the powerful TQ (Three Quarter) Midgets and the bullet-like Champ Karts, culminating on Saturday with the running of “The Coffee Cup Classic”, a 40-lap TQ Midget feature, paying $2,000 to its winner.

Stafford Springs, CT — As teams prepare for the 2012 season at Stafford Motor Speedway, Limited Late Model driver Jesse Hinze is hard at work preparing his car in hopes of reaching victory lane for the first time in his career at Stafford. The 2012 season will be Hinze’s 7th season at Stafford, he spent the first three years of his career in the DARE Stock division before moving into the Limited Late Model division in 2009. The move to the Ltd. Late Model division has seen Hinze become a consistent driver, finishing 8th in points for three consecutive seasons. After coming close on more than one occasion to winning a feature, Hinze is looking to break into the win column this year at Stafford.
In order for Hinze to realize that goal of winning his first race, he first needs a motor for his car. The Limited Late Model Spec Engine is the only approved engine for the 2012 season, and Hinze and his Crazy Bruce’s Liquors team are unsure if they will have a spec engine in their car to race this year.

“The car is ready to go, we’re just waiting on a motor,” said Hinze. “We have a new rear end in the car, we’ve put new body panels on the car, and we ‘re redoing the interior tin, we just don’t have the motor yet. I run my own lawn care business and I think if we can get one more good snowstorm before the spring, that should put us in position to where we can pick up a spec engine. I think there’s a good chance that things will work out, but there’s always a chance that it might not work out. I’m certainly hoping that things work out, I’ve been to Thompson, Waterford, and Monadnock, but there’s no track like Stafford. It would be nice if we could pick up another sponsor or two to help us out with the motor.”
Hinze has carried sponsorship from Crazy Bruce’s Liquors since the 2009 season when he first moved into the Limited Late Model division. Hinze has developed a great relationship with Crazy Bruce’s over the past three years, and he is hopeful to carry the Crazy Bruce’s name into victory lane this season.

“Mark Wilson, who is the owner of Crazy Bruce’s, is a great guy and we’ve had a great relationship with him over the years,” said Hinze. “Mark is always looking to help and he is a big supporter of charity. He does a lot of work with the Reach Foundation and supporting sick children, and he’s always been there for us anytime we’ve needed anything for the car. Last year we made up some team tee-shirts and the plan was to split the cost 50/50 between Mark and myself, but he told me not to worry about my half when I went to pay him my half. Mark donates 20% of his profits to charity and he’s just a really great guy and I hope we can get him into victory lane this year to thank him for all of his support.”
Should Hinze come up with an engine for the 2012 season, he feels like he has all the parts and pieces properly in place to record his first career victory.

Stafford Springs, CT — Stafford Motor Speedway has again lined up an impressive field of current and former open wheel champions for its CARQUEST Champions For Charities Event as part of CARQUEST Super Saturday on June 30th. During the coming weeks, SMS will offer a profile on each of its championship winning drivers and the charity they will be racing for and this week’s CARQUEST Champions For Charities spotlights falls on 8-time ISMA Supermodified champion Russ Wood, who will be racing to support Racing Against Cancer.

“My relationship with Racing Against Cancer goes back to 6 or 7 years ago when my kids were racing karts at Sugar Hill,” said Wood. “We got started with Racing Against Cancer back then and we’ve been involved with them in a few things since then. My wife was the chairperson for a Relay for Life in our hometown, and she will be doing that again this year. We’re looking forward to raising money for cancer research and hopefully we can surpass our total that we raised last year.”

A big part of Wood’s fundraising efforts will be at Stafford Motor Speedway the day of the CARQUEST Champions For Charities event. The speedway will host A Prelude to CARQUEST Super Saturday; Foot Power in the A.M. and Horse Power in the P.M., a Racing Against Cancer Track Walk that will run from 9:30-11:30am on Saturday, June 30 prior to the feature events.

Stafford Springs, CT — Stafford Motor Speedway has announced that for the fifth consecutive season, the track’s Memorial Day Weekend Whelen Modified Tour event will be sponsored by TSI Harley-Davidson, the oldest Harley-Davidson dealer in the state of Connecticut.The 22nd Annual TSI Harley-Davidson 125 will be held on Friday, May 25th.The race sponsorship continues a relationship that dates back to the 2006 season when TSI Harley-Davidson sponsored a NASCAR K & N Pro Series East event at the Connecticut half-mile.

“We’re happy to be back at Stafford for another season,” said Harry Levesque, Owner of TSI Harley-Davidson.“Stafford has been a great place for us to showcase our line of Harley-Davidson bikes.A lot of race fans are also Harley-Davidson fans, and we enjoy working with Stafford and being able to interact with all of the fans on race night.”

The TSI Harley-Davidson 125 has become one of the top stops on the Whelen Modified Tour calendar.The TSI Harley-Davidson 125 has seen last lap passes for the win as well as duels for victory between some of the best drivers on the Tour.Whelen Modified Tour champions Ted Christopher, Tony Hirschman, Donny Lia, Bobby Santos, III, Ronnie Silk, and Mike Stefanik have all tasted the fruits of victory in the TSI Harley-Davidson 125.